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Originally Posted by RIJIMMY
imho, you can only effectivley govern if you view all people - race, religion, creed as equal. Yes, I believe that and believe our founding fathers believed it to.
I agree with what I think you're intending to say here. I think we both agree with the founders that we are all equal before the law. But I don't think they believed that we are equal in every other way. Even on the face of it, that is not true--certainly cannot be true in your religious belief. If you view your religion as equal to all other religions, or all other religions as equal to yours, and, even further, you see all atheism and agnosticism as equal to your religion, that's a nice egalitarian attitude, but it eliminates any reason to have your religion.
As a conservative, I want the government out of my life. If I want to have witch orgies in my basement with fellow practitioners, its my business. As a private business owner, I should be allowed to hire only witches if thats what I want.
Again, I mostly agree with your sentiments, but go easy on wanting government out or your life. Not only ain't that gonna happen, but we sometimes get so sick of big brother intruding that we forget it's our duty to kick him out of where he doesn't belong. The Lone Ranger ain't gonna do it for us. Unfortunately for our peace of mind we must be more, not less, involved with government. I think the founders wanted that.
But for a public official, I think its different. He/She should not express preferential treatment for anyone. I can see your and scotts point that this took place in a church and he was addressing fellow Christians and I think that adds some context to his statment. But its a slippery slope.
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I don't think Bentley was expressing preferential treatment, rather he was expressing personal religious attitude. I saw no expressed nor implied intent to treat those outside of his religious community with politically preferential treatment. If some wish to take his statement as a threat, I can see how they could--all statements of personal preference or belief can be seen as a threat to those of differing persuasion, even if no threat was meant. It could, as you say, be a slippery slope--even in a direction other than you imply. If we are cowed into not making overt statements of belief for fear of offending or threatening others, freedom of speech may become a dead letter. Again, I understand that in a public forum, his statement would be inappropriate, but in a private congregational setting, it was an expression of brotherhood with co-religionists.